Push, Pull, Slide
by PhoenixDragonDreamer
Summary: Any protests, any words he had were stuck in his gullet, unable to get past the panic-lump that resided there, Sammy's words had rendered him mute


**Push, Pull, Slide...**

**By: PhoenixDragon**

**Disclaimer:** Well...you know I don't own them - they probably wouldn't be alive if I did, lol! Nope, that pleasure belongs to Kripke and Co - I'm just keepin' 'em warm for a tad.

**Summary:** _Any protests, any words he had were stuck in his gullet, unable to get past the panic-lump that resided there, Sammy's words had rendered him mute - and the push/pull/slide had heaved him over, leaving him uncertain and rocky even as he breathed through it, his world falling out from underneath him even as it was sitting **right here**._

**FB:** Yes, please!

* * *

It takes him awhile, sitting here, ass going numb on the bench - his smile half-hearted even as Sam jokes about Mount Doom - because he can feel it. That push/pull/slide thing that used to happen between them -

_Was it an hour, a week, a year ago? He didn't know anymore..._

- that effortless THING they had was falling, _failing_ - even before Sam opened his mouth, the words ' _You don't trust me - I don't trust myself_' hitting like flat stones on metal before that push/pull/slide was push/push/pull away. Any protests, any words he had were stuck in his gullet, unable to get past the panic-lump that resided there, Sammy's words had rendered him mute - and the push/pull/slide had heaved him over, leaving him uncertain and rocky even as he breathed through it, his world falling out from underneath him even as it was sitting _right here_. Their push/pull/slide was winging away from him - and sure it had been bad, they were lost - LOST dammit! But it was getting better, right? Right?!

But now it was all uncertain, it was all up in the air - the trembling breath of Time waited his answer and Sam's eyes bored into him with the earnestness of a small boy - needing him, _wanting_ him - to make it all right again. But he could barely stand in this world, the world that had betrayed him two years ago (had it really been that long?) leaving his often shaky, but infinite reality a cracked grim wasteland where nothing was set in stone, nothing was a sure thing - and as Sam pushed, pushed and pulled away from him, he could feel that last bit of solid ground crumble until he was left flailing at emptiness, his mouth way ahead of him as he sealed his own fate in his mind.

He didn't follow much of what Sam said - just his brother dropping the knowledge of their failing relationship, their FAILING into thin air where it could breathe along with them was shocking enough. To have it just said, so casual, so heartfelt - it made it real. More real than the amulet he no longer wore, more real than the ' _I'm fine, I'm better_' two seconds before Sam showed him with a quick slide of the eyes and a fierce burst of strength that he was _not_ fine - and it was never going to BE better - more real than the stark bleakness of NOW, with Sammy pulling, sliding away from him - even before he had actually done so. It was to this reality that he no longer wanted, that he could no longer comprehend, that he relented - he told his brother that this madness, this horrible push/push/pull away was okay, was fine - they could breathe and function and be human within it.

It was one of the first times he had ever truly lied to his brother - and this knowledge made him sick, made him tired - even as he watched Sammy, HIS Sammy - go. He had already planned this, had already set up for it - even as Dean saw him climb into the waiting truck to pull away. And just that fact alone told him that it was over, all over - and god if he could just take it all back and never turn the nose of the Impala to Palo Alto and undo this nightmare! He'd rather Sammy be a safe and unknown stranger at Stanford who never called and was angry with his family - than this man who _shouldn't_ be a stranger, who had laughed, cried, ate, shared, slept and hunted with him for four years and yet was further away from him than before - and he had never seen it coming. He had never seen the truck waiting on standby as his baby brother made plans to leave him - and he had never seen that the world could be so uncertain and dark. Even with all they had been through - all that they had done - he could never have seen this. And that was why he let him go. Maybe...maybe it was for the best.

But he didn't think so, even as his eyes followed the fading tail-lights of the camper truck, even as he sat until the evening fell shivering with cold, eyes straining for a glimpse of what was, what might have been.

So he sat and thought and wished to an entity that never listened, never cared - and daydreamed about the hot night in Palo Alto that changed it all...

**~Fin~**


End file.
